Has anyone had any success creating custom borders for the Achievement Window WITHOUT modifying EQUI_animations.xml, EQUI_templates.xml?

I've tried creating custom borders to replace WDT_AchievementOpen, WDT_AchievementCompleted, and WDT_AchievementLocked but the engine doesn't seem to recognize my new templates when called in EQUI_AchievementsWnd.xml and EQUI_AchievementWnd.xml.

I also tried creating a new .tga file which didn't work very well with my intricately detailed borders due to the fact the default border dimensions don't line up exactly. It turned out pixelated with gaps and uneven borders.

My UI isn't throwing any errors, the new borders just don't get recognized. I assume this is due to some dynamic action on the back end used to expand the sub-achievement window when clicked.

You can define custom elements in any xml file. You can gut EQUI_Templates.xml, and paste its entire contents into EQUI_PotionBeltWnd.xml, and the UI will continue to work exactly as it did before. Animations and templates exist just for organization.

Can you post the files you have in progress? It sounds like you have some properties defined incorrectly, and is making appear as if what you are trying won't work. There is no reason why you can't make a custom border for the Achievments window.

One would think so; however, if elements were defined incorrectly one of two things would happen: A) a UI error and / or crash to default;or B) a new border with messed up graphics due to incorrect Ui2DAnimations.

Neither of those results occur. Nothing occurs. The two templates in question are:

WDT_AchievementOpen is called as a template in both EQUI_AchievementsWnd.xml and EQUI_AchievementWnd.xml. Nowhere can i find a reference to the blue background template WDT_AchievementCompleted. My hunch is that template is called on the backend when the game renders the window and checks for quest flags.

I don't have a full file. I trashed them since they don't work. It's easy to test yourself.

Ok, after extensive testing in game, I can confirm without a doubt that, no, you can not edit that part of the achievement window without editing the templates file. When it renders that window, they have hardcoded to use WDT_AchievementOpen and WDT_AchievementCompleted depending on its state, regardless of what you define in the Screen element. You can, however, change the definition of the Draw Template, but since you can't have more than one element with the same name (as I am sure you know), you have to edit it in the Templates xml.

As far as your background being jacked, I did discover one interesting thing. The texture definition in the Animations file is set to 1x1, even though the file is 32x32. Since 1x1 is still powers of 2, it dosen't mangle anything, but I found that odd. If you change the texture definition to 32x32, you can edit the Achievement_unlock_color.tga texture to be an actual texture instead of just a 1 pixel fill color.

You should also be able to change the 'Border' elements in the WDT_AchievementOpen template to different border pieces without a hitch, assuming they are all defined correctly. I changed all of the borders to my custom 'InnerFrame' animations, and they showed perfectly.

One additional thing I learned a while back, when creating your own textures, and defining them in a <TextureInfo> tag, it is case sensative. It will not throw an error anywhere. For example, if your texture is named MyTexture.tga, but the definition has mytexture.tga, it just won't display anything.